Imaginary Friend

by Stephen Chbosky
705 pgs

Christopher's mother, fleeing an abusive relationship, takes her seven-year-old son and moves to the small ton of Mill Grove, Pennsylvania. She has no money and no possessions, but she's determined to start a new life for the to of them, safe from the violence and threats she's endured.

But shortly after arriving, Christopher begins hearing voices. They speak to him from the clouds and from a white plastic bag, warning him of the dangers of a "hissing lady." Following the voices, Christopher enters the woods near town one day and disappears. Six days later, when he walks back out of the woods, Christopher has changed. The changes aren't immediately obvious, even to his mother, but they begin to manifest over the coming days and weeks.

Before he went missing, Christopher struggled in school. Numbers and letters always seemed to be jumbled up when he'd see them. But when he returns, they all seem to fall into place, and he quickly begins outperforming all the other students in his class. Christopher is also obsessed with building a tree house in a specific tree back in the woods, a tree house that for some reason, he knows he must finish before Christmas, or something terrible will happen.

Imaginary Friend is a horror story that seems inspired by Stephen King and Stranger Things. It's a fantastical and epic story. It's Chbosky's first book in twenty years, and based on it, even if it takes twenty years to write his next one, I bet it'l be worth the wait.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Dry Bones

by Craig Johnson
306 pgs  (Longmire series #11)

Dry Bones, the 11th installment in Craig Johnson's Walt Longmire series, begins with the discovery of the largest, and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever found. Jen, as she's soon named, is discovered in Absaroka County, Wyoming, on the ranch of Danny Lone Elk, an elderly Cheyenne cattle rancher, and she's estimated to be worth around $8 million.

Soon after the discovery of Jen, Danny Loan Elk's body is discovered floating face down in a turtle pond on his ranch, and it's up to Walt to figure out who needed him dead. But with Danny's family, the Cheyenne tribe, and the federal government all claiming rights to Jen, it's not going to be easy.

Dry Bones is just another example of whey Craig Johnson's series is so good, and why it seems to be growing in popularity with each book that comes out. Even with the ending of the Netflix series based on it a few years ago, it seems like I come across fans of the books more often now than ever before.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

The New Girl

by Daniel Silva
475 pgs  (Gabriel Allon series #19)

When the daughter of Khalid bin Mohammed, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, disappears, the prince reaches out indirectly to the one person who he knows would be able to find her, the man who also happens to be the least likely person who should be willing to help. But Gabriel Allon, the head of Israeli Intelligence, recognizes the potential opportunity this presents. He knows that if he's able to successfully find and return Khalid's daughter to him, that the Prince could become an invaluable ally in that influential Muslim country, an ally who could be instrumental to operations for decades to come.

Daniel Silva's books have always been good, but the last few have been exceptional. They've represented a new high for the series (now 19 books in) and The New Girl continues on that trajectory. It's fantastic.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Adjustment Day

by Chuck Palahniuk
316 pgs

I've made the decision it's time to move on from Chuck Palahniuk, and I don't feel guilty. It's him, not me. I can't keep reading garbage books just because every once in awhile he writes a great one. I know they can't all be Fight Club, or even Rant, but do the misses have to be so terrible? I wish he could be like so many other authors and right average to pretty-good books most of the time and then every once in awhile knock it out of the park. But Palahniuk never writes an average book. It's either a home run, or he falls and knocks himself out trying to get out of the dug out.

Adjustment Day wasn't worth my time to read, nor is it worth the additional two minutes it's taking me to write this.

★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Girl on the Porch

by Richard Chizmar
150 pgs

I might be a fan of Richard Chizmar. My introduction to his writing was Gwendy's Button Box, which he co-wrote with Stephen King, and which I liked, but wasn't sure at the time how much I should credit Chizmar vs. King. Then I read his solo follow-up to that book, Gwendy's Magic Feather and enjoyed it just as much, sans King.So, I decided to pick up his novella-length story The Girl on the Porch, and the hits keep coming.

The story centers around the identity of a girl who in the middle of one night rings the doorbell of a couple of houses in a small neighborhood. None of the neighbors answered the door, since it was around 3:00 AM, but the next day, when Kenny and Sarah Tucker check the footage of their home security system, they see that it was a half-clothed woman with a shackle hanging from one of her wrists, who frantically rang their doorbell numerous times before running away and disappearing. When the police begin investigating, and when the girl's body turns up a short time later, tensions in the small community begin to build as neighbors begin turning on each other, questioning how much they really know and should trust one another.

The story is short and only takes an hour or two to read, which is both a positive and a negative. Chizmar doesn't waste much time with backstory and character development. He just throws you into the heart of the mystery and takes you for a ride. Unforunately though, I felt like the premise of the story merited a lengthier book. I would have loved for a longer and more gradual build up, along with an ending that didn't feel quite so abrupt.

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆